


you're the only home i'll ever know

by TheLadyBlakeney



Series: in this world of strangers i belong to someone [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, IT Chapter Two Fix-It, Multi, Stan-Centric, Stanley Uris Doesn't Take a Bath, Suicidal Thoughts, but also they're gonna have to work through trauma, cliff steele voice: therapy! therapy!, everyone in the losers club loves each other!!!!, remember kids it's not a fix it if stan's still dead, stan goes back to derry, stephen king can should must and will meet me in the pit, they're all friends and all support each other!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21840268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyBlakeney/pseuds/TheLadyBlakeney
Summary: Unbidden, one of Mike’s hands came up to the curl falling into Stan’s eyes.He hovered there, eyes flicking back down to Stan to ask for permission, and Stan nodded once, eyes flicking down and up.Silently, he brushed the curl away, and as he retracted his hand, his fingers brushed lightly against Stan’s cheek.A voice in the back of his head snidely asked him how many times he’d read Pride and Prejudice.Mike told that voice to shut up.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: in this world of strangers i belong to someone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1573582
Comments: 27
Kudos: 118





	1. four phone calls

**Author's Note:**

> stenbranlon/stanlonbrough nation rise!!!!! 
> 
> thanks to claudia and ashley for supporting this <3
> 
> stanpat is too powerful and i had to nerf their love in order for this to exist rip but there WILL be eventual audrapat in this series and that is a promise
> 
> warnings for this chapter: depiction of an anxiety attack (which differs from a panic attack in its manifestation)

“Should I just go for it?”

Stan looked up over the couch at his roommate, squinting at the blur of blonde hair and tan skin that was Patty, sitting in the kitchen. “Go for what?”

“You. Me. Buenos Aires.”

“Are we actually talking about that?” Stan said, leaning back as he took his glasses out of his cardigan pocket to slide onto his face.

“We are,” Patty said as she came into focus. “It’s my birthday next week, we can both definitely afford it, and it’ll be good inspiration. Only question is whether or not you can take enough time off from saving small to medium businesses for a week?”

Stan thought about it.

“Should be fine.”

As he turned back to his puzzle, she hissed something celebratory under her breath and there was the sound of furious typing.

“No one else is coming,” he said. “Not even Amanda?”

“Nope. Just you and me, babylove.”

Stan snickered at the nickname. It’d started as a joke back in college, constantly being mistaken for a couple. They’d made it a game, coming up with increasingly bizarre pet names to call each other, and babylove is what had stuck.

He squinted at the puzzle, missing only the last piece, and he frowned, unable to find where it had gone: but as he looked through the clear glass of the table, he spotted where it had fallen onto the carpet, like something at the bottom of a lake.

Sighing and folding his glasses to stick them back into his cardigan, he bent down to pick up the piece when his phone buzzed.

He peered up at it through the table; it was a text with a bunch of numbers he didn’t have saved. Probably someone from work.

He sighed but picked up the puzzle piece before he looked at the text, letting the aria that Patty had put on calm any premature annoyance at his coworkers.

He settled back into the couch, smiling a bit as the final piece slipped easily into place, as if the puzzle had never been without it.

He picked up his phone, glanced at the numbers, and froze.

Some distant part of his brain told him the area code was from Derry, Maine. Stan didn’t know how he knew that. Stan barely remembered the town that he grew up in. In fact, he tried to not think about it.

Why did he promise that?

Stan blinked.

Why did he try not to think about that?

His hands hovered over the phone and then swiped open the messages.

_ Hey, everyone. This is Mike Hanlon from Derry. We all used to hang out as kids. You probably - _

But Stan didn’t get any further than that because he threw the phone across the couch and bolted upright.

Distantly, he could hear Patty but not what she was saying. Patty’s voice sounded like it was coming from above water, and like he was drowning.

“Stan?”

“I’m going out for a walk,” he said, mouth moving of its own accord.

She frowned.

“Are you taking your phone?”

“Patty, I can’t look at it right now  — ”

“Then let me come with you.”

“No, no, I have to be alone, I  — ”

“Stan  — ”

Her hand curled around his wrist.

He flinched away.

She backed off, but as he stood there unmoving, gaze shifting to his feet, he saw her hand dig into her pocket and hold out her own phone in the space between them.

He stared at it blankly.

“Take it,” she said, “and I’ll text you. If you can’t deal with whatever’s going on...with your phone...then at least take mine. You should let me know where you’re going.”

He nodded, took it numbly into his hand, and then the lethargy was gone and every part of his body was screaming at him to  _ act _ on something and then he’s out the door and down the street.

Patty’s too smart, too tuned into the situation now, and he knows that she won’t let it go.

The humidity of an Atlanta summer clung to his skin but he really can’t feel anything other than the squeezing around his heart.

He catches sight of the sky and thinks that it’s going to rain soon.

Then he’s on the phone, calling Theresa. His roommate back from college, who’d moved to California some years ago. 

She’s probably taking care of her kids, he thought wildly, or picking them up from school, or teaching piano lessons or  —

“Hello?”

Stan doesn’t say anything. He can’t. 

She’s on her second, slightly more annoyed, “Hello?” when he manages to say “T-Bird?”

She says, “Stan?”

“Yeah,” he says, and it sounds shaky even to him.

And Theresa’s smart, too, smarter than Patty, maybe, even, when it comes to things like this.

“How’s it going?” she asks, and it’s sweet, but it doesn’t loosen the tightness in his chest. He can only shake his head in response but then he realizes she can’t see it.

“Just uh  — can you tell me about your day?”

He doesn’t know where he’s going.

“Sure,” she says, and it sounds warm.

It starts to rain.

He ducks under a big tree, feeling the rough bark at his back, ridges lining up against his spine, the leaves like wings encircling him from above.

“Well today was the fairytale ball but Elisabeth was too sick to go,” Theresa said. “I’m sure she won’t even remember when she’s older, but she cried this morning when I told her she had a fever and couldn’t go to school.”

“That’s awful,” he said, and to his surprise, he laughed as he did.

“Yeah, it was hard for her,” Theresa said, and there was a rustling sound in the background. “But when David came home, he gave her a drawing and it was her as a princess.”

“He’s a good brother,” Stan said.

“He is.”

More shuffling, and the sound of a door closing.

“Where are you, Stan?”

“Outside.”

“Are you on your street?”

He double checked the street sign on the corner, even though he didn’t remember making any turns. “Yeah.”

“Are you going home?”

He thought about it.

“I don’t know.”

She paused.

She knew, better than anyone. She’d seen him through all-nighters and month-long breakdowns.

Just as he’d seen her through hers.

“Whatever’s going on, Stan. Don’t do anything about it just yet. You just have to go home, and you just have to keep breathing, Stan.’

He huffed out a laugh. “That’s two things, T-Bird.”

“Ha ha. I ask for so much.”

“You really do,” he said, but he leaned back.

“What are five things you see?”

“Uh...trees. The street. Puddles, houses, and. Dirt?”

“Dirt,” Theresa echoed. “Is it raining there?”

“Yes.”

She hummed. “That’s nice. It sounded like it was.”

“Yeah.”

“Theresa?” a voice called. Her husband, probably.

“Just a second,” she called out back.

Stan looked up at the rain. “You should probably go.”

“Just promise me. Promise me those two things.”

“Home.” He said. “Home and keep breathing.”

“Keep breathing,” she agreed. Then, “I love you, Stanley.”

“Love you, too, T-Bird,” he said.

“Talk to you later?”

He took a deep breath.

“Yeah. Talk to you later.”

He hung up, texted Patty, and stepped into the rain.

When he got home, Patty was standing there with a towel for him and his phone in her hands. The rain had sunk into his skin, paradoxically making him feel lighter. But to him it made sense. He remembered that same feeling of water living in his skin, of being underwater, the sun filtering through silt and distant laughter.

“You got more texts while you were gone,” Patty said, but quickly added, “I didn’t read any of them.”

“Thank you,” he said, and then he hugged her because he could.

“Is something going on, Stan?”

“It’s fine, just some bad news,” he said.

“Is everything alright?” she asked.

He looked her in the eyes but he can’t quite hold her gaze.

“Yeah, yeah, I think I’m just going to turn in early tonight.”

“Okay.” Then when he’s half-way up the stairs, she said, “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

Not anything, says his heart.

But instead, he just smiles and says, “Yeah. Yeah, we’ll talk in the morning.”

He went inside his bedroom and locked the door, absentmindedly stripping off his wet clothes and changing into pajamas before climbing under his covers.

If he’s going to call Mike Hanlon about what he thinks — what he _knows_ — Mike is contacting them about, then he’s going to do it safe in the corner of his room where he can see everything, and safe from under his blankets as it rains.

Mike had tried to call him, Stan can see the notifications for the missed calls. But as his fingers hovers over the option to call him back, Stan’s brain whispers  _ not now not yet _ desperately, and so instead Stan briefly skims over the chain of texts, and finishes reading the original text that Mike had sent.

_ You probably don’t remember me, or each other, but please trust me. We all made a promise to each other back then. I’ll call each of you, and I hope that you’ll remember. _

It was cryptic as fuck, but Stan figured there wasn’t a better way to break the ice. He didn’t expect Mike to drop “Hey remember when we all got hunted by a demon clown when we were kids? Damn, that was weird. Also you all need to come back to fight said demon clown because we decided to swear on it with a fucking stupid blood oath” into a group chat. 

It took two rings before Mike picked up.

Mike breathed in and said, “Hey, Sta  — ”

“It’s back, isn’t it?”

There’s a pause.

“How much do you remember?”

Stan’s finger traces the scar on his left palm, one that he’d never known the origin of.

He knew now.

“Everything,” he said into the silence of the room. “I remember all of it, Mike.”

Apparently, Mike had not expected that.

“None of the others do,” Mike said after a long period of silence, only the sound of his breathing on coming through the other end. Wherever he was, it was quiet.

“I don’t know why I do,” Stan said. “I had forgotten all of it.”

But then again, he hadn’t.

He’d always known, somehow, that he’d grown up with famous author William Denbrough, and that he’d traded joking insults back and forth with that mediocre standup comedian Richie Tozier and that whenever someone was wearing a Rogan-Marsh design at the MET Gala or the Oscars, he felt a rush of pride, even though he couldn’t quite name why.

Somehow, even though he’d forgotten, he had known.

And when he’d woken up in the middle of the night, screaming and sobbing like it was breathing, he had known.

The memories had slipped away like most dreams did, but now he knew.

“You remember...Pennywise?”

“And the woman, from the painting in my dad’s office. Neibolt. All of it.”

“Why did  —  ” Mike began to say, but cut himself off, pausing before beginning again. “Then you remember the promise we made.”

Stan does. The feeling of broken glass slicing through his palm, squeezing his eyes shut at the pain, hissing.

Bill standing before him, eyes apologetic and deep.

“Yes.”

Stan dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand.

“I’ll text you the details then,” Mike said, before he adds, “I’ll see you soon, Stan the Man. You know we can’t do this without you, right?”

Stan choked out a laugh, and said, “Sure.”

Mike tells him goodbye and hangs up.

Stan stares at the ceiling above him.

As much as he loves Mike, and he really, really does, he can’t go back to Derry. He can’t hear that grating voice again, or see that face. 

Any of It’s faces.

His phone rings again.

Puzzled, Stan lifted the phone up to his face.

It’s a number from California, and Stan doesn’t have it saved, but it’s already been such a weird and awful day that Stan doesn’t hesitate to pick it up.

“Stanley Uris speaking,” he says out of habit, and there’s a long pause before a voice stutters out, “St-Stan?”

“Bill,” he says, and he doesn’t know how he knows. But he knows he’s right when Bill laughs.

“It’s been so long,” Bill says, and the stutter is gone. Stan can remember it, how even after they thought they’d defeated It the first time around and even when Bill’s family had moved away from Derry he’d still had that stutter.

“It has,” he says, and doesn’t know what else to say.

He hears shuffling in the background, and Stan bites his lip and decides to ask first, “Are you going back to Derry?”

Bill hums noncommittally. “We, uh…” and Stan knows he’s trying to get through the haze of almost memories. “We made a promise.”

“Bill, do you remember what we promised?”

There’s a pause, and then the sound of a match being struck.

“No,” Bill admits. “But I know that it was important. And Mike said he’ll explain more once we get there.”

Stan closed his eyes. Of course Bill didn’t remember. 

Another match being struck.

“Are you lighting candles?” Stan asked.

Bill chuckled. “You remember that, huh?”

“How could I forget,” Stan said dryly, turning on his side. “Bill Denbrough, the number one reason why the chandler on Pasture Road never went out of business.”

He can see it in his mind’s eye, the way that twelve-year-old Bill had reverently placed the three-wick candles in his windowsill, and though he had never said, Stan knew what they were.

A light to guide Georgie home.

Bill had never stopped doing that, even after they knew without a sliver of a doubt that Georgie had died that rainy day. 

Something about just striking the match, even, was special to Bill.

Bill had suffered the most back then. Holding onto hope that even he had known was futile but with the anguished whispers of  _ but maybe _ floating around in his mind, until inevitably grief had come for him in the form of a tattered yellow raincoat. 

And here he is, ready to head back to Derry, without a second thought, because he has no idea what awaits him there.

The decision is already made in Stan’s mind, when another call comes through.

Stan pulls the phone away from his ear in confusion, and this time it’s a number from Chicago, and Stan thinks that this is the most area codes he’s ever gotten calls from in one day. 

He quickly swipes back to the text chain, and it’s the same number that’s over bad jokes and he instantly knows it’s Richie.

“Stan? You still there?”

“Yeah, yeah, uh, Richie’s calling me.”

“Oh, you should talk to him! Tell him I say hi?”

“Sure. Oh, uh, Bill?”

“Yeah?”

Stan took a breath. “Did you call anyone else?”

Bill chuckled. Softly, hesitantly. “No, uh, just you.”

Stan thinks of bright blue eyes and a boy bathed in golden sunlight.

“I’ll see you soon, then,” Bill says, and it feels like a promise. But more than that, it feels safe. 

It feels like Bill lighting his candles.

“See you soon,” Stan echoes.

Bill ends the call, and by this time, Richie’s call has gone to voicemail, so he calls Richie back and turns on the lamp. It’s nearing 10:00 here, so when Richie picks up, he’s not exceptionally surprised to hear the sound of nightlife.

“Stan!” Richie exclaims happily, and he sounds drunk. “Stanley Urine!”

“Don’t call me that,” he says reflexively.

“Dude it’s been so long!” Richie says.

“It has,” Stan agrees, doing the math quickly. “Twenty seven years.”

“Yeah, dude! It’s wild, man, I didn’t even remember you until Mike called me like three hours ago. Do you remember Mike Hanlon? From  _ Derry _ ?”

There it was again, the squeezing feeling in his chest.

“Stanley, you there?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, I’m here. Wait, how did you get my number?”

“Oh, I asked Mike who was who in the group chat. Oh, and I also called Eddie.”

Stan fought the urge to roll his eyes but he could feel a smile forming on his face at the same time. “Oh? And how’d that go?”

“He hasn’t changed at all, man.”

There’s a wistfulness there that Stan knows and remembers, and he thinks about Bev asking him about Richie and Eddie.

“So what’s their deal?” she’d asked him, cigarette in hand, shower cap over her red curls, as they watched Richie and Eddie bicker about the hammock, Eddie climbing into it without a trace of caution, practically hurling himself on top of Richie.

“What do you mean?”

“Richie and Eddie.”

He’d shrugged. “They’ve always been like that.”

Stan’s jolted back to the present when Richie asked, “So what happened to you, man? Where in the world is Stanley Uris?”

“Um, Atlanta, Georgia.”

“So I was right!”

“What?”

“Didn’t I say you’d move to Georgia?”

“Florida.”

Richie makes a dismissive sound. “Same fucking difference, my guy.”

“And where are you right now?” Stan asks.

“Some bar in the great city of Chicago, whichever’s the one that’s closest to the venue that I just destroyed my career in.” He hiccups.

“That sucks to hear,” Stan says, unsure.

“Nah, man, it was time. Think I should give up. But hey, you probably became something boring but super steady and have lots of money anyway. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I’m an accountant,” Stan admits, and the urge to do...something...fades as the tightness loosens in his chest.

“Can you teach me to do that?”

Stan’s mouth curls into a smile without meaning to.

“I don’t know, Rich. You kind of have to know how to read.”

There’s a silence, and then a startled laugh on the other end. “Fuck you, dude!” Richie says brightly, and something warm settles in Stan’s chest instead. 

“So you coming to Derry, Stanny?”

Stan doesn’t answer, he still can’t. Even though he already knows the answer.

“Are you?” he says instead.

“Mike seemed pretty insistent. He said we all needed to come back.”

Stan bit down on his lip, then took the leap once more. “Did he say why?”

“Something about a promise that we all made back as kids. You know, he wasn’t really super clear on that. But I...I think we have to go back.”

Stan takes a breath.

“I threw up, like, immediately afterwards, though. That was fun.”

“Why?” Stan asked, though he already knew.

“I dunno, just got a really bad feeling. Nerves, man. They’ll get you.”

Stan huffed out a laugh. “That’s certainly true.”

There’s a pause, and then, “Stan. You okay, dude?”

Stan so badly wants to say yes, and then move on so he can hang up and get it over with.

But for once in his life, Stan does the braver thing. The unsafe thing.

“No,” he says, and he’s not going to cry,  _ dammit _ , but he feels his throat closing up all the same, the feeling of burning glass scraping against the walls closing in, and the sobs spill up in bubbles before he’s able to stop them.

A part of him disconnects from the situation, thinking about how ridiculous it is, that he’s sobbing in his pajamas at 10:30 pm on a Tuesday while on the phone with Richie Trashmouth Tozier of all people, his best friend from thirty years ago who he hadn’t even remembered until an hour ago.

He hears Richie swear and say a half garbled sentence to someone, and then the noise on Richie’s end quiets to the sound of distant traffic.

“Stan  — shit, fuck, um, is there anything I can do?”

Stan can’t speak, he shakes his head and presses his lips together, because there’s nothing he can say that will make any of this make sense.

“Because you know I would do anything for you, Stan. I would move mountains for you. I would travel through time for you. I would fight off a homicidal kangaroo for you.”

The joke works, because Stan chokes on a laugh.

“Do you think Bill’s gone bald by now?” Richie asks in a way that’s supposed to sound offhand. “And what do you wanna bet that Mike’s become the most beautiful man on Earth?”

“Bill won’t have gone bald,” Stan cracks. “He’s probably gone gray, though.”

“What, and you haven’t?”

“Ha, ha. Do you think your mirror screams silently when you look at it in the morning?”

Richie mock gasps over the phone.

“You wound me, sir, and besmirch my honor,” he says in an affected Southern Belle imitation, and Stan’s vaguely aware that he’s stopped crying, even if he is sniffling awfully through a mess of snot.

“Not much honor to besmirch,” Stan says back, and it’s shaky, but he can laugh, and so can Richie, who does, and the sound is familiar.

“Ten bucks Bill’s bald,” Richie says.

“You’re on,” Stan says, and the implicit message is there.

That he’ll be going to Derry to see if Bill has gone bald or not.

“Are you gonna get home alright?” Stan says after a pause. His breathing has eased, and distantly there’s the sound of horns honking on the other end.

“Yeah, I’m only a few blocks away from my apartment.” Richie pauses. “You gonna be okay, dude?”

Stan suddenly feels very sure. “Yeah.”

“Go to bed, it’s your pumpkin hour anyway, Staniella,” Richie says. “It’s, like, what, midnight in Georgia?”

“Nearly eleven.”

“Yeah, that. Go to bed, my guy. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“After our first date? You weird fuck,” Stan says back, because it feels like something Richie would say, which is comforting.

Richie chuckles. “Night, Stanley.”

“Goodnight, Rich.”

Richie hangs up, and Stan stares up at the ceiling in silence, until he rolls over, turns off the lamp, opens up his phone, and searches for flights to Maine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes mike sends out a group text. it's 2016 the man has no good reason not to do so
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at twoheartsoneclara!


	2. i'll see you in the future when we're older

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t know, some people find accountants sexy,” Richie says.
> 
> “No one finds accountants sexy,” Eddie fires back. “That’s not a thing. Firemen, sure. But definitely not accountants.”
> 
> “Well, Stan’s sexy, though, right?” Bill asks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to hannah, who i made watch the movies and then once i told her i was writing a fic, demanded that i let her beta it. you are truly the realest one
> 
> chapter title from the song "laughter lines" by bastille
> 
> warnings for this chapter: suicidal ideation, evil supernatural nonsense

The air is heavy the night that Stan steps foot back in Derry.

It’s much cooler than Atlanta, the breeze seeping into his bones.

After the little sleep that he’s gotten and driving to Derry from the airport in Bangor at night, which he’d always hated, and checking into the only thing Derry had that was remotely close to a motel, Stan was frazzled and for a minute he just stood there outside the restaurant, breathing.

He’d gotten the address in a text from Mike, and Stan’s never been to this place before or even remember seeing it — it must have opened up within the past 20 years or so — but at the same time, the name, _The Jade of the Orient_ , just sounds _so_ dated.

He tells the hostess he’s here for the Hanlon party, and she quickly leads him back, informing him that they had chosen to begin without him. There’s a small twinge in his gut, but Stan quickly tries to tamp it down. It won’t do him any good to dwell on it, though he can already feel his brain saving it for fuel later.

He shakes his head as though that will be able to clear the thought away and then he’s there, looking into the room, seeing six people sit at a round table, an empty seat for him between Richie and Eddie.

It’s Mike who sees him first, and the warmth in his eyes makes Stan’s heart exhale.

“Stan,” he says, and the conversation turns silent.

Mike gets up and moves so quickly that before Stan can even process what is happening, Mike has engulfed him in a hug, and Stan doesn’t even like hugs, not really, but Stan sinks into the hug, the burning of Mike’s arms and hands wrapped around him a hotwire and a groundline all at once.

Though the rest of the world felt as though it had floated away, pieces of it came flitting back into the hazy edges of Stan’s peripheral as Mike pulled back and smiled.

“Why don’t you take a seat. Then we can really get started?”

Stan nodded, and did his best to make an attempt of a smile back at Mike, and said, “Sounds good to me.”

The conversation starts again easily, and Ben tells Stan that he’d made sure that they’d saved him noodles and carefully points out the pork.

It’s sweet, and so very Ben, but Stan can’t do anything other than smile at him across the table.

There’s a glass of water for him as well, courtesy of Eddie, a fact that Richie announces proudly, while Eddie mumbles, “Shut up” quietly as he makes eye contact with the bottom of his wine glass.

They all greet him, but grant him reprieve so that he can eat, and somewhere along the way Stan acquires a glass of red wine.

The conversation is about jobs now, he thinks, and Richie teases Eddie relentlessly and Stan can’t quite hide the smile as he stares into his plate as Eddie asks him, “What are _you_ smiling at, Stan?” defensively, which only makes Stan laugh harder.

Richie slings an arm over Stan’s shoulder. “See, Eddie, Stan will always take my side.”

“Not true,” Stan says, reflexively, but he leans back into the touch.

“And what about you, Stan?” Mike asks magnanimously from opposite the table. “What did you end up doing?”

“I’m an accountant,” he says.

“And how is _that_ any less boring than being a fucking risk analyst?” Eddie says, and Stan laughs against Richie’s shoulder.

“I don’t know, some people find accountants sexy,” Richie says.

“No one finds accountants sexy,” Eddie fires back. “That’s not a thing. Firemen, sure. But definitely not accountants.”

“Well, Stan’s sexy, though, right?” Bill asks.

“Oh, Stan’s very sexy,” Richie said, as Stan reached for his glass of wine, shifting forward to try to hide the burn in his cheeks. “It just isn’t inherent to his being an accountant.”

There’s a muttered, “Pick a fucking side,” from Eddie but Bill speaks over the din.

“So, Stan, you married?”

Bill looks good, with silvery streaks in his hair as if the moon had run her fingers through it, an easy smile on his face.

Stan fights back the urge to shake himself.

“Yeah, c’mon,” Richie says, “We’ve already got the down and dirty on everyone else’s life. You’re officially the most interesting person here.”

Stan sets down the glass. “Um, no. No, I’m not. Married.”

“Damn,” Richie says

Stan turns to him, who quickly adds with a raise of his hands, “No offense, just thought you would be.”

“In another life, maybe,” Stan said, carefully looking down and away from Bill’s gaze.

Ben takes pity on him and asks, “So what sort of accounting is it that you do? Payroll? Auditing, taxes?”

“Mainly taxes, mostly for businesses in the Atlanta area,” he says.

Richie leans on his shoulder and begins to snore loudly.

“Cut it out,” Stan says as he flicks Richie on the forehead.

“I’m sorry, these things you’re saying are just too boring to be said in decent company.”

“Well, maybe if you actually had grown up like the rest of us, you might be able to understand what I’m talking about.”

“Stop, stop,” Beverly said. “Why do you have to keep killing him when he’s already dead?”

She was grinning.

She took a drink and leaned back as Bill engaged her in quiet conversation, and Eddie and Richie picked up a conversation over Stan’s head; he was grateful for the lull in conversation - he hadn’t had a decent meal all day, and not much of a chance to actually eat what he’d put on his plate.

He didn’t want to get too drunk, too quickly, no matter how tempting it was, under the eyes of Bill across the table, and the way that Mike would glance at him from across the table, every so often, as he, and Ben beside him, listened to Bill and Beverly’s conversation.

A massive bowl came and replaced the previous platter, filled with fortune cookies. Stan idly grabbed one to put on his plate, saving it for after his meal.

“It’s weird, right?” Ben says, breaking Stan out of his reverie. “I mean, now that we’re all here, it all comes back faster and faster. I mean, all of it.”

Stan knows where this is headed. He falls silent, and the others start to talk about the phone calls, the way they’ve all forgotten what happened that summer, and when Mike says, “I remember all of it,” his eyes flick up to meet Stan’s.

Then Bev speaks “Pennywise” into the silence. Mike pulls out a journal, and the volume rises as the others begin to protest, and Stan can faintly hear Ben say, “Let him explain,” and Mike explains the oath that they made, and Eddie turns away from all of it and snaps open his fortune cookie.

“That’s weird, my fortune just says Couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t?” Richie asks.

“Yeah. That’s it.”

Bill tears into one next. He frowns, and shows the other Losers the white slip of paper, the words “It” scrawled out in fresh black ink.

The rest of them reach for fortune cookies, their hands drawn out towards them, like gravity is pulling them in, a black hole that they can’t escape.

Stan finds his own hand reaching for the cookie he’d set aside.

As he cracked it open, the voices of his friends, which had been raised to a dull roar, faded into buzzing white noise like the burning wick of a candle.

There on that little slip of white paper, in his own handwriting, was his name.

He wasn’t sure how long it was that he stared at it, but he thought perhaps if he blinked, it would go away.

But it didn’t. In fact, every time he blinked, the ink began to run a little bit down the paper, and then a little more.

The paper was gently pulled out of his grip, and he came eye-to-eye with Beverly, whose eyes hold the ocean in them.

The pieces of paper lay in a line on the table in front of Bill, spelling out some sort of message.

Bill took the final piece with a grim set to his mouth, and slid it into place.

Couldn’t Even Do It Right Huh Stanley

Stan blinked.

Eddie’s voice was shaky. “Stan, what does that mean? Why does it say your name?”

Stan wanted to say, “I don’t know,” but the words get caught in his throat, and he can’t look up at everyone’s eyes on him, eyes closing around him, he can only look at the pieces of paper dripping with dark ink and it’s in his handwriting, why is it in his handwriting —

The bowl of fortune cookies starts to shake.

The cookies clatter against each other, and the ink from the fortunes begins to ooze into a black sludge, and the fortune cookies crack open.

An eye, a deformed chicken burst forth, the one on Stanley’s plate splinters open with a glint of metal inside, and Stan throws himself backward; somewhere a bird is diving at Ben and Eddie, and out of the corner of Stan’s eye he sees Bill scrambling backwards and nearly falling over because there are _heads_ in the _fish tanks_ , and Mike is screaming that “It’s not real, it’s not,” and smashing everything on the table to bits with a chair.

And then it’s all over, with the polite but concerned voice of their server, but Stan feels like everything is buzzing around him, he can’t focus on anything other than the way he’s shaking and the fact that he feels nauseous.

He heads for the exit immediately, Richie is saying something about the check, but Stan can’t stay there where everybody’s going to look at him.

Not when they’d be able to look into his eyes and see.

He stops by the front, so that the hostess who gives him a concerned side-eye won’t think he’s skipping out on the bill, and he closes his eyes, and breathes.

A light pair of footsteps approaches him, at his side, and he knows before he opens his eyes that it’s Beverly.

She doesn’t say anything, just meets his eyes steadily.

She slips her hand into his, and his hand is sweaty and warm, but he squeezes his hand in hers anyway, willing his heart to slow and the blood to stop rushing in his ears.

The others get waylaid by a child and Stan can’t do anything except watch it all happen from a distance, see the way that their shoulders rise with tension, the way that Eddie’s eyes flick back and forth, but Stan can’t force himself to move. He’s utterly frozen, and he’s going to just stand here and watch his friends die, and he can hear Richie scream “I’m not afraid of you”, and - and then the air shifts, the boy standing in front of them just looks confused and annoyed, not remotely scary, and with the hand that’s not in Stan’s, Bev starts to dig into her pockets.

The seven of them step out into the cool Maine night, and after the sheer chaos of the last ten minutes in the restaurant, it’s silent, until Richie shatters the quiet with an emphatic “What the _fuck_.”

Beside him, Beverly’s search of her pockets has concluded, and she pulls out a cigarette, and Stan lets go of her hand so she can light it.

“Why did it say your name, Stan?” Mike asks quietly, his gentle brown eyes boring into Stan’s.

“Yeah, and what the fuck was it talking about?” Eddie snaps worriedly, high-strung and worried, eyes flicking back and forth between Stan and Mike. “What can’t you do right? What the fuck does that mean?”

Stan looks at Bev, not wanting to tell the truth, unable to think of a lie, but she can’t put any of it into words, either, he can see it in her eyes.

Ben’s at his side in an instant.

“Give him some space,” Ben says gently, one hand light coming to rest on Stan’s shoulder, turning the two of them away from the rest. Stan’s mind flashes back to the sewers, that last time when they’d gone to rescue Beverly, how Ben had wrapped Stan’s arm around his shoulders, his steadying touch the thing that had brought Stan back to himself.

They walk a short distance away, just down the row of the parking lot, just far away enough that the others won’t be able to hear what they say.

Ben’s hand runs soothingly up and down Stan’s shoulder, his eyes kind. “You okay?” his voice asks, a soft gravel. Stan feels himself nodding, even though he doesn’t think he is.

Ben doesn’t press further, though, just stands there next to him, the only framework that can hold Stan together.

The silence covers them like a blanket, and it would be safe to not say anything, but Stan has been here more times than he cares to admit, and telling someone is always better. And it’s Ben. Ben exudes safety in a way that Stan can’t explain.

So Stan digs his fingernails into his hands and when he’s finally grounded, he speaks.

“When Mike called. I, uh, thought about taking myself off the board,” Stan says, staring out at the cars scattered in the parking lot. He doesn’t want to see Ben, doesn’t want to see Ben looking at him.

“You mean — " Ben starts, then cuts off.

Stan nods, pressing his lips together before laughing bitterly. “Still am thinking about it, pretty much. Couldn’t do it, because I was so scared.” He ducks to stare at the ground.

“Too scared to live, too scared to die,” he mumbled. “Can’t even make up my damn mind.”

Slowly, Ben’s arms wrap around him, and that’s right, Ben always gave the absolute best hugs, the kind where you felt like his arms were your home around you.

“You’re so brave,” Ben said, his head coming to rest on Stan’s.

“I’m not, I’m — " a sob tore past his lips. “I’m not brave.”

Ben’s arms tighten just a bit, just enough, and Stan can feel Ben’s heartbeat, each breath that he takes.

“You’re here, aren’t you? Even though you knew. I saw your face, you remembered before any of us.”

“You remembered,” Stan protested, nestling deeper into Ben’s shoulder.

Ben laughed quietly.

“Not everything. Just glimpses and pieces. Snapshots of us.”

He drew back, arms still holding onto Stan, his handprints seared onto Stan’s skin.

“Promise me you won’t.”

Stan nodded. He could feel a headache begin to build behind his eyes, and as Ben smiled at him, Stan chuckled weakly and wiped away the tears that had slipped down his cheeks.

“I hate this so much.”

Ben laughed softly. “I know.”

“Shall we?” Stan waves his hands in the general direction of the others.

“Only if you want to,” Ben says, then pulls him into another hug. “I love you so much, Stanley. We all do. I want you to know that.”

Stan doesn’t say anything for the longest time, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. So he squeezes his arms around Ben, just until he can whisper, “Love you, too.”

Eventually he loosens his grip, and Ben lets go of him, eyes running up and down as if to check if Stan’s physically alright, and Stan musters up a smile, and Ben nods.

They head back towards the others, and as they get closer, Eddie’s voice only grows in volume.

“What do you _mean_ you’ve seen all of us die?”

Stan’s eye flashes to Beverly’s.

She looks at him, even though she’s answering Eddie, saying, “Not now, Eddie,” in a soft voice.

“Stan,” Bill says. “You okay?”

Stan nods wordlessly.

“Fuck, Mike, that’s it,” Richie said. “We’re leaving.”

“Rich — ”

“I’m sorry, I’m with Richie,” Eddie said. “Bev just said she’s literally seen all of us _die_.”

“Bill — ” Mike tries.

“We have to stay,” Stan says.

Everyone turns to face him, and Stan doesn’t want to look at them, so he looks at his shoes.

“What did It mean, Stan?” It’s Mike who speaks up next, voice soft but sure.

“I almost killed myself.” It almost sounds like a question, the way that he couldn’t stop his voice from raising at the end of the sentence. “But, um, well, clearly, I didn’t, and Bill...Bill was right the first time. We have to do this. Together.”

There’s a stifling silence, until Richie mutters something softly that Stan can’t quite hear, but then he says, “Stan, we don’t have to do this. It’s not our responsibility.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Mike said solemnly. “But it is.”

Eddie shakes his head, pulling his keys into his hand, “I’m sorry, MIke.”

“Mike’s right,” Bev says, even though she’d stayed silent for most of the conversation. “These visions I’ve had — if we don’t stay here, if we leave...that’s when we die.”

“So we have to stay?” Richie asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question. It sounds resigned.

Stan looks up, and he meets Mike’s eyes, which are pleading.

Stan has never been very good at saying no to Mike. Not when his eyes look like that.

“We have to stay,” Stan says. “We have to stay and fight.”

Eddie presses his lips into a thin line.

“All of us, Eddie,” Stan says.

After a second, Eddie nods jerkily.

Stan lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Richie exhales, too, stepping forward, saying “C’mere,” as he envelopes Stan in a hug.

There are more arms around him, around them. Stan thinks of the Pleiades. Seven stars crashing together.

His next thought hits him like a freight train.

“I forgot to pack socks. And a toothbrush,” he blurts out.

Eddie mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “What the fuck, Stan,” somewhere over his left shoulder, but it’s soft and familiar, comfortable. “I’m taking you to the nearest Walgreens.”

As the others make plans to split up, Bill heading with Mike to the library and the rest to the townhouse to discuss Bev’s visions in greater detail, Stan lets Eddie herd him towards his car, and they get inside, the neon lighting outside the restaurant bouncing off the windshield.

“I’m glad you’re here, Stan,” Eddie says in the silence of the vehicle, keys paused on the way to the ignition. “We all are. Without you, we’d fall apart.”

Stan snorted, but just looked down.

Eddie pulls the car into reverse.

“You guys already do that anyway.”

Eddie’s laughter is one of Stan’s favorite sounds in the entire world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find me on tumblr at twoheartsoneclara!


	3. ours are the moments i play in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And wh-what’d you think?”
> 
> Stan shrugs. “They’re good.”
> 
> Bill laughs. “Even the endings? I have been reliably informed that they s-suck.”
> 
> “Not everything has a happy ending,” Stan says, finally looking up to meet Bill’s eyes again, his beautiful, bright, too-deep blue eyes. Those eyes know him, have known him, can go under his skin, can touch him right down to his bones, and see him.
> 
> Bill’s hands move from his pillow, and one comes to rest near Stan’s, not quite touching, just the slightest graze of skin on skin, and still, it feels like Stan’s nerve endings are on fire.
> 
> “I’m starting to rethink that,” Bill says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to hannah for beta'ing even though we fought over two sentences for twenty minutes. she ended up being right, as always
> 
> chapter title from supercut by lorde...ma'am...thank u for ur service
> 
> warnings for this chapter: none

“Are you going to go up soon?” Eddie asks, face still pinched with worry.

“Yeah,” Stan says. “I think I’m just gonna talk to Mike and Bev first.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, hovering for a bit, looking like he’s going to say something, and then he heads up the stairs, and Stan heads toward the bar, yellow light spilling from a single bulb, pulling him in.

Bev’s hands are shaking, but Stan doesn’t reach out to take them. Some part of him recognizes how poorly that would go.

“Hey,” Mike says quietly, looking completely drained, but he smiles at Stan, and Stan smiles back, even if it feels a little hollow.

“What did I miss?” Stan asks as he takes in the tiny collection of glasses sitting at the bar, as well as a pack of cigarettes that Bev periodically picks up, turns over, and then puts back down.

“When you told us...and then left with Eddie,” Mike says, the unspoken hanging in the air unpleasantly.

“Ben and Richie and I. We talked about them. The visions that I had,” Beverly says, taking over for Mike, looking at Stan. “Remember when you guys found me down in the sewers?”

Stan nods. It’s not as though they could ever forget that day. Not now.

Her eyes had been cloudy, glassy. She’d just stood there, unresponsive, until Ben had kissed her.

“I wasn’t just out of it,” she says. “I saw things. So many ways that we all…”

Pursing her lips, she tries again but doesn’t say anything. She shakes her head, curls falling around her face like a curtain, and takes a drink from the glass in front of her.

“Despair,” Mike pronounces simply, just like he’d named their fear back at the restaurant. “We all end up in a state of despair, and that’s when we die.”

His words, heavier now, sink between the three of them like a haze of smoke.

“You’ve felt it. The way this town changes you…” Mike says. “The way It has changed our lives. None of us have been able to move on, not really. It’ll kill us if we don’t kill It.”

“And that?” Stan asks, pointing towards a legal pad covered in Beverly’s scrawling handwriting.

“Oh, that? We found it at the front desk,” Mike says with no hint of shame. “We’ve been using it to write down what she’s seen.”

“Bev — ” Stan says, then cuts off — he doesn’t know what to say.

She fixes him with a tired smile; it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m fine,” she says, in a voice like wind chimes: melodic, haunting. “I think I’m going to go to bed now.”

She looks fragile, meek, so unlike herself that it hurts Stan a little bit. Beverly isn’t quiet, not like that. She’s a spark in the night, the crackle of laughter, a smile of wildfire and eyes brighter than a thousand suns.

But here she is, trying to make herself small.

She squeezes Stan’s arm as she walks past him and then she’s gone.

When she’s out of sight, Mike slumps in his seat, suddenly seeming decades older. 

“I go last.”

Stan, whose mind can’t track the change in conversation, settles for saying, “Uh. What?”

“In Beverly’s visions, we all die, but I go last. You all go first, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

He sounds tearful, but his face is turned away from Stan.

Stan reaches for Mike’s hand, just feeling the warmth of his skin for a moment. Words are not coming easily, not at the moment, not when Stan still has a headache from crying, and they’ve been presented with the irrefutable fact that they are all probably going to die very soon.

“Maybe none of us have to die,” Stan says eventually, tangling their hands together.

MIke shakes his head. “Stories like these...people always die. I’ve asked too much of you, of all of you.”

“None of this is your fault, Mike.”

“ _Bullshit_.” It’s an anguished near-whisper, and without thinking, Stan wraps his arms around Mike.

“You all must hate me so much,” Mike says gloomily.

“None of us hate you, Mike. None of us ever could.” 

“I ha — I would hate me, too.”

“We love you.”

There’s silence.

Stan rubs circles onto Mike’s back. The angle is awkward, but Stan never wants to let go.

“If I hadn’t called, you…” Mike starts. “You wouldn’t…”

“Shhhh,” Stan says. “It would’ve never been your fault.”

Stan moves back, just enough so he can reach out to Mike’s face, to touch his hand to Mike’s jaw.

“It never would have.”

He speaks the words slowly.

“Beverly’s seen what happens to us, but what if that’s only one version of this? What if we don’t have to die? What if we get to live?”

Mike sighs, but he smiles tiredly. “Are you proposing that we cheat fate, Stanley Uris?”

Mike's eyes crinkle when he smiles, warm, brown eyes.

“I think if anyone can outrun fate, it would be you, Mike.”

Mike finally returns the hug, and it’s like curling up under a blanket on a cold day.

Stan squeezes once, twice, then lets go.

“So, what have you been up to, Mike?” he says, pouring himself a glass of what looks like whiskey. “You didn’t really say much at dinner.”

“Not much to talk about,” Mike says, but it’s warmer.

“Well, you have a job, presumably.”

“I take offense with your use of presumably.”

“Then answer the question!”

It’s not the first time that Mike’s laughed tonight, but it’s special now, when it’s just the two of them sitting here. Stan can feel an incredulous smile on his own face, but it’s easy to smile around Mike. It’s right to smile when Mike is there.

“Okay. I’m the assistant librarian at the Derry Library. They actually have a space above the library and they let me live there, I actually took Bill there earlier to…”

He shook his head. “Anyways, took online classes, got my bachelor’s, and then a master’s in library science.”

Stan nodded, and asked, “And the farm?”

“The farm was my family’s dream, not mine. Not that I really wanted to spend 27 years here either — “

He shrugs.

“I’m sorry, Mike,” Stan says. “you shouldn’t have to had to stay here.”

“Someone had to,” Mike says, shaking his head, smiling with sad eyes.

Stan grabs the legal pad and pen laying on the bar, flipping to the next blank page.

“What’s your dream?” Stan asks.

Mike laughs.

“I’m serious!” Stan said as he jotted down _Mike’s Dream_ at the top of the page.

“Okay, uh...I want to travel.”

“Okay, travel...where do you want to go?”

“Everywhere,” Mike admits. “Maybe start with Florida. Some dreams never die.”

“Okay, Florida. Maybe when all of this is...you can come back with me when I go back to Georgia.”

“I’d like that,” Mike says, hand coming to settle, comfortably warm, onto Stan’s knee. “I’d like it if you were there.”

Stan’s mind freezes for a second, then immediately kicks into overdrive.

Mike squeezes his arm, then moved off of the bar stool.

“I’d better get going,” he says, taking the look on Stan’s face correctly for confusion, though about the completely wrong thing. “It’s good to see you, Stan.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Mike,” Stan murmurs, mind still miles away.

Mike wraps his arms around Stan once more, burying his head in Stan’s neck.

It’s silent, save for the sound of MIke breathing in front of him. He made it seem so easy.

Mike holds on for perhaps just a touch too long, but Stan doesn’t care. He’d hold onto Mike forever if he could.

When they pull apart, Mike says, “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, Stan the Man.”

He sounds certain again.

Mike grabs the jacket he’d laid on top of the bar and puts it back on. “I should probably go check on Bill.”

“Why?”

Mike winces. “He, uh...when I took him over to my place, to show him something, I gave him um, a root.”

Stan blinks.

“You drugged Bill?”

“It has specific hallucinogenic properties...which as I’m saying it, that doesn’t make it sound any better. Look, I’ve taken it myself, otherwise, I wouldn’t have given it to him, and when you take it while paired with looking at a related artifact, you can see how It came to be.”

Stan can feel his eyebrows raised so high they feel like they’ll fly off of his face.

“I’ve seen it, too, and I...I needed someone to believe me.”

Mike shakes his head and sighs.

“It sounds...well, it’s at the least, creepy.”

“At the least,” Stan agrees, nodding. “But I guess — well. I’ll come with you then?”

“Sounds great,” Mike says quickly.

Mike gestures for him to go first when they reached the stairs, and they climb in silence to the second floor.

“He’s staying in this one,” Mike says, knocking on the door of room seven. “Everyone shared their room numbers, just to be safe.”

Stan nods, and when a muffled voice shouts, “Come in,” Mike opens the door.

Bill is curled up on top of the covers, and for a moment, Stan just hovers in the doorway as Mike crosses the room to bend down and talk to Bill, speaking quietly. Stan tries not to listen in, instead studying the tacky floral wallpaper. Whatever Bill and Mike have is magnetic, and Stan feels like an electron circling their nucleus.

Bill mutters an affirmative to a question that Mike asks, and Mike leans down to gently brush away a strand of hair that had fallen into Bill’s face.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Mike says quietly, and then, “Stan’s here.”

Bill turns until he can see Stan, and a massive smile breaks out on his face.

“Stan!”

Now that he’s been noticed, Stan doesn’t really have much choice but to smile and greet him back (though it’s easy to smile at Bill).

“Hey, Bill,” he says softly, so soft he wouldn’t be surprised if Bill hadn’t heard him.

“How’re you doing?” he tries again, crossing his arms, and leaning on the doorframe. Maybe then Bill won’t see how he’s shaking.

“I’ve been better,” Bill says, words almost slurring. Stan doesn’t miss the flash of guilt in Mike’s eyes.

“Night, Bill,” Mike says, and walks out of the room, pausing briefly to say, “Night, Stan.”

Stan’s about to leave, too, has turned his back to Bill, when Bill says, “Stay, please?”

He sounds tired, and a little bit plaintive.

Stan turns around, and Bill vaguely pats the space next to him on the bed.

“I’m...Sure, that’s fine,” Stan says. He can’t very well turn him down.

As he shuts the door and crosses to the bed, toeing his shoes off, there’s a thrill of apprehension that runs through him.

Then he climbs into the bed next to Bill, and it’s like they’re eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen again.

Stan can remember it vaguely, the way that they would sleep, face-to-face, or back-to-back, kicking off the blankets in summer when it got too hot, waking up to the sound of birds and the garbage truck rolling by because Bill had left the window open.

But they’re not fourteen, they’re nearly forty, there’s grey in Bill’s hair, and as Stan settles in, he can feel his hip pop.

They’re embarrassingly middle-aged, far too old to be curling up like a pair of kids at a sleepover.

Stan can’t really find it within him to care.

Bill watches him silently, clutching onto his pillow, and when Stan lays down on his side next to Bill, they’re only feet apart.

“This is just like when we were kids,” Bill says into the space between them, echoing Stan’s thoughts, laughing softly.

“Just like it,” Stan echoes back, then, “You’re okay, right?”

Bill nods. “I’ll live. I did bite my tongue when I fell, though, so that kinda sucks.”

He shifts a little, gripping the pillow between his hands just a bit harder.

“I’m really glad you’re h-here, S-Stan,” he says.

And of all of the things it could mean, even with the stutter, it’s said so surely, that Stan can hear the unspoken “here in this room with me.”

It feels nice to feel wanted.

Stan shifts his gaze down and away from Bill’s face, instead focusing on the soft flannel of Bill’s shirt.

“I’ve read your books,” he ventures, not quite able to look up, not willing to be seen.

“Oh, yeah?”

“I knew they were yours. I mean, I knew that I knew you somehow.”

“And wh-what’d you think?”

Stan shrugs. “They’re good.”

Bill laughs. “Even the endings? I have been reliably informed that they s-suck.”

“Not everything has a happy ending,” Stan says, finally looking up to meet Bill’s eyes again, his beautiful, bright, too-deep blue eyes. Those eyes know him, have known him, can go under his skin, can touch him right down to his bones, and see him.

Bill’s hands move from his pillow, and one comes to rest near Stan’s, not quite touching, just the slightest graze of skin on skin, and still, it feels like Stan’s nerve endings are on fire.

“I’m starting to rethink that,” Bill says.

His hand curls around Stan’s. It feels like a promise.

Stan looks down at their hands, intertwined together, just like how they’ve always been. Like how they always could be.

He looks back up at Bill’s face, to find Bill looking at him, always looking at him.

“I have known you for all of my life,” Bill murmurs, eyes moving back and forth as if he’s searching for something in Stan’s face that he can’t quite find. “And I intend on knowing you for the rest of it.”

Once he’s said it, Stan knows that those are words that the rest of the world will never hear. Words meant for only him. Words that he can believe in. He thinks he sees Bill’s eyes flicker down to his lips.

Stan squeezes his hand once, then lets go.

“You should go to sleep, Bill,” he says, shifting onto his other side to turn off the bedside lamp, promising himself that once Bill’s fallen asleep, he’ll go.

The room is silent, dark. Stan can barely remember that Bill’s there, as though there’s a glass wall between them, that Stan can be safe and alone behind.

Then Bill sighs and says, “G-good night, S-Stan,” and then there’s the sound of shifting, and the minutes tick by until Stan can hear Bill’s deep breathing.

And through it all, Stan stares up at the dark ceiling, unpleasant twist in his spine, unwilling to move, unwilling to breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you find me on tumblr at twoheartsoneclara!


	4. i remember what it is to be so green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike had said to find some part of them that defined their past: something they could touch and remember as their hearts shouted: I was here! I existed!
> 
> The clubhouse was where they had been as friends, where they all could finally breathe, even though it was underground and Bev would smoke and Richie and Eddie would fight over the hammock like undignified heathens. It was their home because it was theirs and it was theirs because it was them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to hannah for beta'ing this as always <3
> 
> chapter title from green by ben rector
> 
> warnings for this chapter: mentions of suicidal ideation, slightly graphic(?) depiction of violence and blood concerning the clown, minor description of ableism concerning a Deaf character, the fallout of Sharing A Bed, more discussion of nancy drew novels than is truly reasonable, and the consequences of sleeping with your contacts in

Stan bolted upright in the darkness. The shrill sounds of Abba blasted through the air. He had been dreaming about snow globes. He felt like his heart could beat right out of his chest. Somewhere at his side, Bill swore repeatedly as he haphazardly tripped out of bed towards the small chest of drawers on the other side of the room.

Bill continued swearing under his breath as he attempted to shut off the alarm, and Stan, feeling dazed and off balance, slumped backwards onto the bed.

Bill said, “Sorry,” softly as  _ Voulez-Vous _ cut off, leaving the room mercifully silent save for the blood rushing in Stan’s ears.

“I’m gonna g-g-g  — shower,” Bill said.

Stan stared up at the ceiling as he heard the sound of rustling, a door shutting, a knob turning, water sputtering out of the pipes, and the spray of water against tile..

There was a weird taste in Stan’s mouth, his eyes hurt every time he blinked, and he could feel a disgusting layer of stale sweat coating his body, which he recognized from falling asleep on top of the covers. He still had a headache, and fuck,  _ ow _ , his eyes hurt, and he curled up tighter in an attempt to produce more body heat.

It was at this point that he realized that his contacts were still in.

“Fuck,” he said quietly into the empty room, before slowly dragging himself into a sitting position.

Which was then the moment that he realized that he had fallen asleep in the same bed as Bill Denbrough.

“ _ Fuck, _ ” he said, eyes burning as each time he blinked, he felt his eyelids scrape over his contacts, scrambling to a standing position, only for his vision to turn black for a few seconds. Fucking low blood pressure.

He scrabbled for the doorknob, and headed back to his room, swearing that the second he’d taken his contacts out, he would immediately jump in the shower.

“Stan?”

Fuck.

Ben was standing there, one earbud out, covered in a light sheen of sweat, in a bright neon yellow running shirt and black shorts, and Stan’s brain felt broken for a second.

Because Ben had definitely seen him coming from Bill’s room.

They just stood there, staring at each other for what felt like years, until Ben said, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Stan murmured back.

Ben nodded, and for several seconds it was silent as Stan could see Ben thinking of the most neutral thing to say. Stan wanted to melt into a puddle of goo.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” Ben eventually said. “We figured we should get breakfast today, before we, you know, try to kill It.”

“Sounds good,” Stan said, one foot already in the door of his room.

Ben nodded and headed for his room, and Stan did his best to not slam the door behind him.

One excruciating battle against his contacts and a shower later, Stan headed downstairs neatly dressed, hair still wet and hopefully drying into something presentable, glasses rammed with resigned finality onto his nose.

He climbed into the rental he’d gotten from the airport (he’d carefully wiped down the wheel and gearstick with a Clorox wipe last night) and called Patty.

It was the same ungodly hour of the morning in Georgia as it was in Maine, but Patty picked up after the third ring.

“Patricia’s Mollusk Emporium,” she said, sounding more than half asleep, mumbling, probably two inches away from the speaker. “You shell ’em, we sell ’em.”

Stan’s heart sighed happily.

“Patty,” he said.

“Stan,” she said back somewhat incoherently. “What’s up?”

He thought about Bill staring at this lips last night. Of Mike’s hand on his knee.

“How do you know if someone’s flirting with you?” he blurted out, and the sky was a dull grey, the sun not even risen yet. It was way too early to be thinking about this.

“Why are you asking me that at...4:53 a.m.?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, panicking, “Go back to sleep, love you,” and then immediately hung up. Then he sighed as loudly as he could into the silence, the sigh turning into an aggrieved groan along the way.

He was on his way to the cafe Mike had texted them the address to when Patty called him back.

“Stanley,” she said, sounding stern and also tired. “Who flirted with you.”

He thought of Mike’s bright smile that made his heart do somersaults, and Bill’s eyes, Bill’s cherry wine red lips.

He sighed again, because that feels like the only way to get rid of the tightness in his shoulders and in his chest.

“I don’t know that they are,” he said, biting down on his lip.

“Stanley. Who is it.”

“Um, Mike. He's a librarian in Derry, he’s the one who texted me. And then also, like, maybe Bill? He’s another one of my friends.”

“Okay, so, two questions. Mike, he’s like a good dude, right?”

“The best,” Stan said, frowning. The very idea that Mike could be...that Mike was in any way not a good person was upsetting. “Mike is, he’s like, absolutely the best of us.”

“I just...you were freaked out, Stan. When he texted you. I’ve never seen you that freaked out.”

“No,” he said, feeling strangely defensive. “None of this is Mike’s fault, he’s just uh..the messenger, I guess.”

“Okay,” she said, with no judgement. “Also, Bill? Like as in Bill Denbrough? That horror book writer you swore you knew growing up?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice.”

Patty was silent for a few seconds, the sound of dishes clunking in the background.

“I guess the main thing is how you feel about them. Unfortunately for you, you know I do not have a good track record with being able to tell if someone’s flirting, or not, so that’s gonna have to be on you, babe.”

Stanley made a face.

“Stop making a face, Stanley. I know you’re doing it.” 

She sighed. 

“Just keep trucking along. You want my two cents, though, Stanley? You’re pretty damn loveable.”

“Thanks, babylove,” he said, and smiled when he could hear her snort. “I’m probably just overthinking it, anyways.”

“Do you want me to catch a flight to Maine? Because I will catch a flight to Maine,” she said, voice crackling over the speakers.

His heart squeezed. “No, it’s okay,” he said, simultaneously desperately wanting her to be there and wanting to scream at her to never, ever come to Derry, Maine.

“How’s your friend doing?”

“What?”

“Your friend?”

Stan’s mind whirred for a few seconds before he finally remembered the half-assed excuse he’d given to Patty in the morning when he’d been packing for his flight, feeling scattered and skittish, that an old childhood friend was gravely ill and likely to pass away within the week.

“They’re, uh...well, it’s hard to be hopeful when you know you’re gonna die soon,” he said, parking the car and rubbing at a sore muscle in his thigh. “But it’s calm, and it’s...it’s really good to see everyone again. I...I hope you can meet them one day, Pat.”

“Any friends of yours are friends of mine, Stanley,” she said, the sound of a faucet running. “Except maybe Denbrough.”

“What, you still haven’t forgiven him for the werewolf book?”

“It’s just not realistic!” Patty protested. She was ten states away, but Stan could see her smile from here. “Nothing about the transformation makes sense, nothing about the patterns of its victims  — ”

“I’m not sure werewolves are realistic in any sense, Pat,” he said, climbing out of the car, the key fob chirping under his thumb, once, then twice, to double check that he’d locked it. The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, and Stan felt like he was glimpsing a view into a different world as he leaned against the grey rental car, the pinks and oranges of first light like sherbet in the sky.

Patty hummed something, probably the melody line for a new song. It wasn’t unusual for the two of them to drop into silence on a phone call as they each attended to their own tasks.

Stan watched as another car pulled into the lot, and watched as a man, probably local, got out of the car, an elderly man with wrinkle lines and a kind smile.

“I’ve got to go, Pats,” he said as he watched the man get out of his car and turn his coat up against the wind.

He ran the few steps to open the door to the cafe for the man and hung up when Patty had hummed a distant “Okay bye” in return.

The man smiled at him, touching his hand to his chin and then moving outwards.

_ Thank you _ .

Stan was so startled that he barely remembered how to sign  _ You’re welcome _ , but the old man beamed at him just the same, excitedly signing hello and his name. Stan’s hands stumbled over the phrases he’d learned a long time ago as he signed his name back.

The man considered the menu of the cafe, which was nicer than any place in Derry had a right to be, and then presented his phone to the barista, who took it with a roll of her eyes, and Stan felt the familiar anger form in his throat and just as quickly the familiar bite down on his tongue.

The man considered this, and when the barista handed him back the phone he made a gesture similar to the one he’d given to Stanley, this time from under his chin.

Stan struggled to keep a straight face, as the girl turned to him with an interested expression.

“What did your dad say?” she asked.

“He said thank you,” he said, not bothering to correct her about them not being related.

“Oh,” she said, smiling, looking pleased with herself.

“And on a separate ticket, I’ll have your orange and cinnamon herbal tea, a medium, with two teabags in,” Stan said, catching sight of Mike, Beverly, and Richie sitting at a table. Mike and Beverly were speaking softly, heads together, but Richie was openly staring at him, and Stan made a shooing motion with his hands.

The man sighed and signed,  _ No manners _ .

Stan agreed, raising his hand like he was knocking, laughing softly.

_ She thinks I’m your son. _

The man’s face was bright and open, eyes crinkled, but Stan didn’t feel ashamed one bit as the man laughed silently, nodding.

_ Not many people know the language. I’m surprised you do. Do you know someone Deaf? _

_ I studied it in college.  _

The pair stood in stillness as the man’s drink was prepared, until the man - George, he’d signed quickly - said  _ thank you _ again.

_ For what? _

_ Being kind _ .

Stan’s mouth quirked into a smile, and he nodded, gaze shifting to his feet for a few seconds.

When he looked back up, the man signed.  _ I’d be honored, you know. If you were my son. _

“Hot chocolate for George,” the barista said, as Stan looked at George, unable to think of what to say back.

He turned to the counter, grabbing the drink, trying to compose his face, before he turned back to George.

_ Thank you _ , George said again, smile all the way in his eyes. Then, before grabbing the drink,  _ Keep your head up, Stanley _ .

He took the cup between his hands, and left through the door, and Stan watched him go.

“Orange and cinnamon tea for Stan!” came the voice of the barista as the bell rang.

He took a seat next to Richie, the still steaming cup of tea in his hands.

“I don’t know much sign language, but did that little old dude tell that barista ‘fuck you’?” Richie asked in awe.

“Yeah,” Stan said, pouring two packets of sugar into his tea.

“That’s awesome,” Richie said, then gleefully, “You wear  _ glasses _ ? That’s my thing.”

“More than one person in the world wears glasses, you know,” Stan said, idly dunking the teabags further into the water.

“Please let me switch with you, I need to know how blind you are,” Richie said, his own glasses already off his face and in his hands.

“Fine,” Stan groaned, the world becoming blurrier as he slid his glasses off to switch with Richie, then wincing immediately. 

“Ugh. Good to know nothing’s changed, Rich." He could easily get a headache from just using Richie’s glasses for a minute, he’d bet.

“Yeah, what happened to you? Read too many Nancy Drew books in the dark?”

“You’ve got me,” Stan said dryly. “I happened to be reading the literary masterpiece  _ The Hidden Staircase _ late one night and my vision went all fuzzy and it hasn’t been the same since.”

“That’s only the second book,” Richie said in a tone that Stan couldn’t quite place.

Stan handed back Richie’s glasses with a grimace and a shrug. “It’s the only one that I remember the plot to.”

“The first one sucked,” Richie said, jamming his glasses back onto his face. “I never finished it.”

“Me neither,” Stan said, relieved as he slid his own pair of glasses back onto his face. “I broke my rule that I would finish every book I read for that book.”

“Wild,” Richie said, yawning, eyes bleary, and he leaned on Stan’s shoulder, just enough that his body pressed up besides Stan, fitting neatly against Stan’s side like they were one person.

The rest of them trickled in slowly and in increments, Eddie arriving next, then Bill, and Ben last.

“How’re you doing, Bev?” Stan asked as Bill waited on his coffee at the end of the counter, scrolling aimlessly on his phone, looking as if each blink was costing him an outstanding amount of energy.

She smiled at him from where she’d fallen silent with her own cup of caramel hot chocolate. 

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Bad dreams?” he asked.

Her smile flickered. “Yeah,” she said.

Then she grinned, and Stan could see the Beverly he knew again.

“But one less than usual,” she said, and reached out to take his hand.

He took it from across the table, and Bill ambled his way towards them, finally popping down in the chair next to Eddie and Ben.

Mike greeted them softly, hands wrapped around a muffin. Blueberry.

Ben turned to Mike, voice soft and still rough, even though Stan had seen him out running. Whoever marries him will really get the whole package, he thought idly, wishing he had honey as he took a sip of his tea.

“You said you have a plan?” Ben asked, hands empty.

“There’s a ritual,” Mike said.

Stan stared at him blankly.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Mike,” Richie said.

Ben sent him the thing that came closest to a glare from Ben, and Richie quieted, drinking from his iced coffee.

“H-he’s right,” Bill said, and Stan could see him wince at his stutter.

“As part of this ritual, we have to find tokens. Something that symbolizes our past, who we were during that summer. And we need to do it alone.”

“What? No way,” Eddie said. “That’s always when things go wrong. Like, even in Scooby Doo, that’s when everything goes wrong.”

“Yeah, I’m with Eddie,” Richie said. “Splitting up seems like a dumb idea.”

“You still don’t remember everything from that summer. Not the times that we were apart,” Mike said.

“We were together that whole summer,” Richie protested.

“N-no,” Bill shook his head. “Not that w-whole summer.”

Stan remembered. The fight.

“The fight,” Richie blurted out.

“S-s-s- fuck. Sorry. For punching you,” Bill said.

“Don’t sweat it man. I was being a dick.”

“We split apart,” Mike said. “Until we went to save Beverly.”

“Yeah you guys all skipped out on my Bar Mitzvah,” Stan said jokingly. “Richie’s my only real friend here.”

Stan turned to him, eyes confused, brow furrowed.

“You remember?”

Stan nodded.

The crushing loneliness. The semi-sleepless nights that wouldn’t turn into full blown insomnia until after that day in the sewers.

Mike considered it, considered him. Stan wanted to shrink away, away from Mike’s gaze.

He dunked the teabags into his cup again. He wished he had honey.

“The tokens might be anywhere. You’ll know them once you have them. Things you can’t let go of. They’re a part of you, for better or for worse. These tokens, they’re part of the ritual, physical remnants from our past that we need to offer up as a sacrifice. If we succeed, we’ll get rid of It for once and for all.”

From Stan’s right, Eddie exhaled, and took a sip of his coffee. Black, no sugar.

“We should set out after breakfast,” Mike said distantly, like he was speaking to the rest of them from far away, like he was a lighthouse keeper talking to them all adrift in the ocean. “I’ve already found my token, when I first learned about the ritual. I’ll wait for you all in the library. Meet me no later than seven.”

Bill spoke up first. “We w-will.”

* * *

The old clubhouse was right where it had been, which Stan had discovered after half falling into it. He’d trekked through dirt and mud, across the creek, which he’d nearly slipped into. The Barrens were just like they were in his memories: a child’s haven, woods with bright sunlight filtering in through the trees, a place that could be anywhere you wanted it to be. 

The rickety old ladder creaked threateningly under his feet, but did not break.

Mike had said to find some part of them that defined their past: something they could touch and remember as their hearts shouted: I was here! I existed!

The clubhouse was where they had been as friends, where they all could finally breathe, even though it was underground and Bev would smoke and Richie and Eddie would fight over the hammock like undignified heathens. It was their home because it was theirs and it was theirs because it was them.

Stan once again felt a flash of gratitude for being allowed to have become friends with Ben Hanscom.

Ben, whose hugs felt like what freshly baked bread smelled like, who’d memorized all of their McDonald’s orders and who had never admitted but Stan knew wrote those unsigned notes to each of them when they were feeling down.

Ben was a home inside of a person, a hearth than you could gather around to get warm, a kindness in the movement of a stranger on the street that you fell in love with.

Stan smiled.

The room was cluttered by the stuff that they’d all left behind after promises to visit that they had all forgotten.

There was a baseball bat at the foot of the stairs from Bill’s short lived career as shortstop of the Derry Dino’s, a stack of mixtapes and books over in a corner where Ben, Mike, and he used to sit, Bev’s collection of cool sticks and rocks that she had found.

He knew what he was here for: the shower caps. Maybe it was stupid, but he knew who he was that summer. And he knew when he was his happiest, and that was with his friends.

He found the tin, an old paint can that had been washed out diligently, and found them in there, the plastic fabric smooth under his fingers.

It was safe here, this hole in the ground, and Stan snickered.

“It was a hobbit hole, and that meant comfort,” he mumbled to himself.

The haze of golden memories, trickling in like the sunlight trickling through the ceiling, was a beautiful quiet noise at the edge of Stan’s mind.

The good always seemed to get swallowed up by the bad.

He hadn’t said it, hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, but Beverly hadn’t been the only one to look into the Deadlights. He’d been unable to scream, unable to breathe, his entire face swallowed whole into It’s mouth, and he’d seen the thousands of ways he saw himself dying, his friends dying.

And how he’d seen himself committing suicide, over and over again, and the voice whispering in the back of his mind told him that they would be better off without him.

And that he’d nearly done it.

But he was here, wasn’t he? He still took up space, still breathed, still thought and felt. 

People were so eager to believe in the existence of evil, but couldn’t shake their doubt of goodness and truth.

“Goodness and truth?” A grating voice said with glee from the darkest corner of the room.

It giggled, and the hair on the back of Stan’s neck stood up.

“You should know better by now than to believe in goodness and truth,” It crooned, stepping out of the shadows, face flickering back and forth between a thin, distorted face and one caked with white and streaked with red.

Stan bolted for the ladder.

He could hear the laughter chasing after him, and then the clown, the woman from the painting, flickering back and forth just as surely as strobing lights, was in front of him.

It unhinged Its jaw.

And then Stan was on the floor of the clubhouse, throwing up his forearms in front of his face, mind kicking into overdrive.

“Come on, Stanley, I know I was the first to have the pleasure of sucking face with you,” It said, and this was it, wasn’t it? He was gonna die in the middle of the woods while a clown made a shitty pass at him. He moved one of his arms to cast to the side and Its teeth followed, sinking Its teeth into his arm, and he stifled a scream as he cast his other hand about for the rock he’d seen as he’d glanced around for weapons.

He bashed it over the woman’s head, bringing it down over and over again, until It let go of him with a shriek, and he had scrambled halfway up the ladder before he felt Its teeth sinking into the flesh above his ankle.

FUCK, it hurt. He turned around, trying to shake it off, but that only made It hold on tighter.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” he said, feeling tears of pain well up and nausea making him lightheaded  —  ever since that summer, he’d go into shock quickly after injuries, no matter how small they were.

His right wrist reached out to curl around the baseball bat that was there, his wrist protesting at the effort, and throbbing, the blood dripping down his wrist.

It was like no time had passed. Stan half expected Richie to scream out again, “Welcome to the Losers Club, asshole!”

But Stan was not Richie.

Instead he gritted out, “You should have stayed dead, bitch.”

And he brought the bat down on Its head.

With a squeal that hurt Stan’s ears, It let go, and Stan scrambled up the last half of the ladder, slamming the cover of the clubhouse shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find me on tumblr at twoheartsoneclara!


	5. it's such a good feeling to know you're alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you see now, Stanley?” Its voice crooning in his ear, breath hot and rancid, the smell of rotting meat in the sun.
> 
> It didn’t startle him this time. Stan had grown used to a voice like this behind him, at his shoulder, for all of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to hannah for beta'ing this, even though it was at a writing session and she gave me the saddest of looks since she's trying to do nanowrimo but during february the literal shortest month of the year why would you do that hannah. also sorry darling i love u <3
> 
> chapter title from it's such a good feeling by jj heller
> 
> warnings for this chapter: strong suicidal ideation, graphic depiction of violence and blood concerning the clown, a lot of pettiness on my part

_ You did this _ .

He’d seen the spatters of blood on the floor, Eddie’s blood, had heard it again in his own mind as he’d perched against a shelf in the library, every single muscle in his body tense as he watched Ben bandage Mike’s arm.

_ You did this. _ It’s what Stan had known since the beginning. He wasn’t meant to be here. He was a coward. He was a coward who was going to get them all killed.

It had all gone to hell pretty quickly.

Which Stan cannot say that he wasn’t expecting, to be perfectly honest.

One of Its massive pincers thudded into the ground behind him, jarring him out of his thoughts, and he ducked into the first crevice in the cave wall he could find, running further into the dark corridor.

His wrist was throbbing, the bandages that Eddie had stuck on right around the fresh bite probably getting bled through, and he was limping, his leg screaming out at him with each step he took, almost certainly oozing with fresh blood.

The gauze itched, and Stanley bit down on a swear as he slowed down to stop at the sight of a gravestone a few feet ahead from him.

The cracked, faded gray stone lit up under the dim light of his flashlight, and his mouth pulled into a frown as he squinted at the lettering half-obscured by dust.

_ Here lies Stanley Uris. _

_ Missed By No One. _

The words punched all of his air away, and as Stanley knelt down, he thought.

If they all got out of there without Stan, he knew that no one would try to get him back. He wasn’t Bill, who they were all ready to die and kill for at the age of thirteen, or Bev, who was braver than a lioness, or Richie, who the whole world would feel so empty and cold without, or Mike, with his intelligence and heart, or Ben, who they’d be an incomplete tapestry without, or Eddie, who looked out for all of them. They would all move worlds to get them back, and Stan would, too.

But he  —  well, he’d always been meant to die. If not here, then back when he’d been called by Mike, or back in the clubhouse, or even back here when he was just newly thirteen. The others would be upset, but they’d let him go. Or maybe they wouldn’t be upset. Richie would call him the weakest of all of them, and Bill would snap back at him tiredly, but secretly agree. Maybe Bev would cry for him.

“Do you see now, Stanley?” Its voice crooning in his ear, breath hot and rancid, the smell of rotting meat in the sun.

It didn’t startle him this time. Stan had grown used to a voice like this behind him, at his shoulder, for all of his life.

Stan wasn’t even aware of getting to his feet, and the woman from the painting was behind him, but Stan didn’t feel anything but a thrill of numbness run through him at the sight.

She was always taller than him, and she always would be, what could have been a kind smile instead a sneer a little ferocious, a little too bright.

It spoke in that same grating voice, bringing up one of Its hands, long, thin fingers, as it said, “You know the answer, Stanley. You know what you have to do.”

As Stanley watched, the woman hacked up a shard of glass into her palm.

“Take it,” she said, and Stan did, fingers curling carefully around its edges.

He thought that he heard a shout in the distance, and his eyes flicked towards the way he had came, but It blocked his vision.

“No others,” It said, in a humming sort of way. “All alone.”

Stan starts to cut into the skin of his wrist.

It watches greedily, at the first rivulet of blood dripping down wrist.

“You’ve always been alone.”

It’s the summer of 1989.

Bill is standing in front of him. Like a young god.

Mike at his side, bloody hand in his.

A slight breeze on his skin.

The same burning feeling of glass on his skin, glass cutting through his skin, his glass skin. Hand torn open like paper, a burning pain he’s felt all of his life.

He had gone home alone that day.

Everything had changed that summer, and he’d known it. Stan had changed, and he knew that, too. He hadn’t felt like an adult, like a man  — he didn’t feel any different after his Bar Mitzvah, even though he was. He’d just felt lonely. No one had showed up.

Richie had been there.

Stan blinked. He could see the cut on his wrist.

He could also see the bandages Eddie had carefully wrapped around his other arm. Could feel Ben’s hand on his shoulder, see Bev’s face as she threw a rock at Bowers, momentarily stunned by her own strength, Richie’s scream of “Welcome to the Losers Club, Asshole!” ringing in his ears, Mike’s blindingly bright smile, the feeling of clutching onto Bill, the wind blowing through their hair as they rode Silver, Stan’s hands clutching onto Bill, laughing as they tipped precariously to the side as they clambered onto the bike, his hands finding a home on his shoulders, around his waist, unable, unwilling to let go.

“No,” Stan said.

In the periphery of his vision, he saw the woman freeze.

“No?” It hissed.

“No,” he said. “I may not be much. I may be alone right now. But I know something about myself that you will never be able to comprehend.”

Its mouth twisted into an unpleasant grimace. “What?”

“I know that I’m a loser,” Stan said, moving the glass away from his arm, and flicked his eyes up.

“And no matter what, I always fucking will be.”

Stan hurled the piece of glass into Its maw as It unhinged Its jaw, and as It choked on the bloody glass, Stan pushed past It, sprinting back towards the cavern, and when he threw his head to look behind him, It was no longer there.

_ I will always belong to them _ . _ I have never been alone. _

As he stumbled back into the dull green light of the cavern, he caught sight of Richie and Eddie hidden behind a section of cave wall, Mike hiding behind a stalagmite, jagging upwards, and from his right, Bill dragging himself out of a gap in the rock, sopping wet and looking completely drained of energy.

He couldn’t see Ben or Bev, but then there were other pressing matters at hand. Stan’s blood thrummed in his freshly cut wrist, like electricity running through his blood, and he hissed and ducked behind the nearest cover he could find, which turned out to be another outcrop of rock jutting upwards.

The cut that he’d made wasn’t that deep, but the shock was hitting just the same and maybe one day Stan could have an injury and not nearly pass out in response, but it was certainly not today.

He tore at the hem of his cardigan to make a makeshift bandage and was doing a frankly horrible job of tying it, when Mike was picked up in the air, and then Richie was in the Deadlights and Eddie threw a spike into Its head, just like how Beverly had skewered it through the eyes when they were all kids.

Eddie hovered over Richie for a few seconds before Richie lunged upwards to throw Eddie to the side scrambling out of the way himself as Its pincer stabbed through the air to land where the two of them had just been.

They bully It to death.

It feels ridiculous to Stan, but It is fueled by belief so if they all believe It can’t hurt them, It won’t. If Stan believes that he’s with the six people in the world who can be at his side and protect him beyond any danger, that he can survive  —  if he chooses to believe that he has a future, then he does. It’s as simple as that.

Stan hurls every taunt It’s thrown at him back in its face and as they all stand there, and crush Its heart in their hands, a massive weight lifts off his chest and he can finally breathe deeply again.

Richie wraps Eddie in an embrace so tight, Stan can see how Richie is shaking, his whole body trembling. Mike and Bill are smiling, relieved, wrapped up in each other, and Bev looks so free and so knowing as she looks up at Ben, and for one aching moment, Stan thinks that Pennywise is right, that he is alone. And then Bill is dragging him into a hug, and he can feel Bill’s heart thumping into his ribs, trying to reach out for Stan’s own racing heart, and Mike tentatively puts his arms around the both of them and Stan pulls him closer as he breathes into Bill’s hair. It’s crushing, overwhelmingly exquisite, how their bodies fit against his.

Stan would have stayed there forever if it meant staying in their arms but the ground shook under his feet.

“The cistern’s falling apart,” Mike said matter-of-factly from Stan’s side, voice rumbling low in his ear. “Must be because It’s dead.”

“We gotta go,” Bill agreed, taking Stan’s hand in his unconsciously.

The seven of them scrambled out of the sewers, returning up the rope at the well, and the house on Neibolt Street crumbled behind them, too, the whole thing turning to dust and sinking into the ground seconds after Eddie had leapt the final few feet past the gate.

Stan stared at the wreck - it must have all sunk down hundreds of feet, and that gaping cavern probably wasn’t even there anymore, blinked out of existence when It died.

It was over.

They all trudge wordlessly to the quarry, past the trainyards and the dump, because of course it’s where they’d all go. The sun is warm on Stan’s back and he keeps looking around at all of them, how all of them are all still here. There’s a breeze, and his hands brush against Mike’s and Bill’s, and he stares down at their feet. It’s something he’s done since he was a kid, and their footsteps are in sync with one another. When someone walks at your side, they become attuned to your rhythm, marvelously inhaling and exhaling, footfalls even and soft. Stan thinks of a song that Patty likes to play around the house sometimes. It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive.

When they reach the quarry, they forgo shedding their clothes, like the tired forty year olds they all are, and they all jump in.

Bev jumps first and then Bill, Ben, Richie, Mike, and it’s just Eddie and Stan at the top of the cliff.

“I can’t believe we’re all gonna try to clean ourselves off with dirty water.” Eddie says gloomily. “Especially you  — is that a new injury on your  _ other _ wrist? And Richie’s definitely got a concussion, there’s no  _ way _ he doesn’t  — why are you laughing?”

“I’m just glad you’re here to say those things, Eddie,” Stan says, and he pulled Eddie into a hug.

Eddie hugged him back, firm and alive, fingers wrapped around his shoulders tightly, and then Stan stepped back and then Eddie jumped, much less fragile than the world had tried to make him believe he was.

There was a skittering sort of sense of deja vu as he looked down at them in the water, and a warm feeling some around his chest and curled up around his heart.

Stan jumped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find me on tumblr at twoheartsoneclara!


	6. so take my hand, take my whole life, too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You should shower, too,” he said, nudging Bill.
> 
> “I nearly drowned, and then we all went to the quarry, and now I have to get in more water?”
> 
> “That’s right, we’ve rigged the system,” Stan said. “Also, if you don’t, there’s no way I’m sleeping in the same bed as you tonight.”
> 
> Bill stiffened next to him, and Stan froze.
> 
> But then Bill laughed softly next to him. “You play a t-tough game, Uris.”
> 
> This could be something, Stan thought. Bill is lying beside him, and this could become something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to hannah for beta'ing. read on if you want to read a work beta'd by a woman who told me that it is "technically impossible" for aliens to exist but that ghosts do and she has scientific proof and then proceeded to list not a shred of scientific evidence. what a himbo. also she did finish nano in 29 days and she's very proud of this fact and she should be
> 
> chapter title from can't help falling in love by kina grannis, aka the best version, to which a great portion of this chapter was written to as i listened to it on a loop
> 
> warnings for this chapter: three grown men trying to dance around their feelings, other than that: none :)

“I feel like a drowned rat,” Bill said, frowning, eyebrows scrunched up as he flopped heavily onto the covers of the bed in Stan’s room.

“You kind of look like one,” Mike chuckled. He threw his jacket over the chair that sat in the corner of the room, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be doing that there, before he crossed into the bathroom, the sound of water lurching out of the pipes, the spray hitting the floor of the tub.

Stan fell onto the bed next to Bill, staring up at the ceiling.

“You should shower, too,” he said, nudging Bill.

“I nearly drowned, and then we all went to the quarry, and now I have to get in more water?”

“That’s right, we’ve rigged the system,” Stan said. “Also, if you don’t, there’s no way I’m sleeping in the same bed as you tonight.”

Bill stiffened next to him, and Stan froze.

But then Bill laughed softly next to him. “You play a t-tough game, Uris.”

 _This could be something_ , Stan thought. Bill is lying beside him, and this could become something.

Bill sat up, paused, then stood.

Stan’s heart skipped a beat, and plummeted at the same time.

“I’d better get cleaned up then,” Bill said, hands on his thighs. “If I want to be allowed near you anytime tonight.”

Stan nodded. “I suppose so,” he said, willing his voice to sound as diplomatic as possible.

Bill nodded, paused uncertainly, like there was something else he was going to say, then nodded again and left the room.

Stan flopped back onto the bed, enjoying the brief moment of thudding pain that he felt as his head hit the mattress. He groaned at the weird spasming pain in his back that he’d always get from lying down, the kind he’d had ever since he’d been a teen. They’d always joked about how Stan was the grandpa of the group, but he had the creaky joints to prove it.

Mike’s clothes were neatly folded a few feet away from him. He stared at it until the black running shorts and yellow t-shirt blurred together into one horizon. He’d asked Mike to come back with them to the townhouse, they all had, but there was something else itching at the back of his mind, but he wasn’t quite ready to think about that just yet. His glasses were pressing into his nose uncomfortably, but a kind of tiredness was settling into his bones. The kind of tired where you feel like you are slowly turning into a puddle or a stone. Part of the earth and yet without a care in the world.

“Stan?”

“Hm?”

He jerked awake, a swooping sensation in his gut like he’d been falling. He’d been hazily treading the line between asleep and awake, and he breathed in deeply, feeling not quite arrived in his body.

“I hate to ask, but can you help me?”

“Sure, with what?”

Stan stumbled to his feet, following the sound of Mike’s voice from behind the almost shut door in the corner of the room.

“My, uh...my wrist, is definitely still sprained, and it’s fine...except I can’t reach part of my back.”

Stan stared down at his feet, his thick blue wool socks standing out in sharp relief from the white tiles.

A curtain separated them, opaquely clear, and Stan reached out to touch it, the plastic bunching up under his fingers. He watched the motion of his hand as he moved the curtain slightly, the light scrape of the rings across the shower rod. 

“Yeah, hold on, just let me grab a washcloth.”

The words sound distant to himself.

The texture of the washcloth is slightly rough, flimsy, worn down over the years.

“Can I, uh...come in?”

This was so undeniably foreign territory to Stan besides being just...weird. And slightly uncomfortable. He was very much so aware of the fact that he was still about to climb into the shower fully clothed and that Mike was most definitely...not. Wearing clothes.

“Go ahead,” Mike said. He sounded calm.

Mike held the bar of soap in his hand, facing the showerhead.

Stan slipped in behind him, easily, and Mike turned around and smiled at him as Stan reached out to take the bar of soap from him, the smile cautious but grateful, before turning around again.

There was an odd tension in the air, electric and vibrant. Stan swore that they shared a breath; in, then out.

He placed the bar of soap in the washcloth, and ran it once, twice, over his own hand, watching the foam form against his palm.

He started washing the back of Mike’s neck, traveling across the top of his shoulders, down his back, to where his shoulder blades gently jutted outwards. Like a pair of wings, Stan thought idly, as he continued down the planes of Mikes’ back, across his ribs, stopping above his hips.

Mike shifted, taking a foot forward, and water streamed down his back, washing the suds away.

Stan’s breath was caught in his throat, and when Mike stepped back, they stood together in stillness. Mike was still facing away, and somehow, it was easier that Stan couldn’t see his face.

A kind of bravery overtook Stan, one that never would have before.

His palms hovered over the broad planes of Mike’s back, settling lightly onto his shoulder blades.

He placed a kiss, feather light, to the center of where Mike’s wings would have been.

There was no time to overthink it, to berate himself for what he’d just did, because Mike turned around, and Stan looked into his eyes, really deeply into his eyes.

This must be what it’s like to be in love, Stan thinks for the first time in his life as Mike reached a gentle, open hand to Stan’s jaw, and kissed Stan until he was senseless.

No music played. It’s nothing at all like anything Stan has ever imagined. His toes curled inside of his socks, which are now wet, as he shivers. One of Mike’s hands is on his waist, lighter than air, and Stan’s other hand came up to graze across Mike’s bare arm. It feels like dancing.

When Mike drew away for air, Stan’s eyes stayed closed, breathing in.

His eyes opened, as Mike’s large, impossibly warm hand moved, his thumb gently pressed against the side of Stan’s throat.

“Your heart’s going so fast,” Mike said, laughing quietly. “It’s like a hummingbird.”

That startled a laugh out of him, and he flushed, feeling warm from head to toe.

He laughed, and took Mike’s face in his own hands, and with drops of water falling softly into his hair, like rain on his face, he kissed Mike again.

“I don’t know how to say this,” Stan said, rocking back on his heels. He was in his pajamas now, and he’d crossed his arms around his chest, feeling strangely energetic. Which was probably the neurotic tenseness he’d been feeling since he’d frantically called Patty ten minutes ago asking her what to do. “But I think there is something between the three of us.”

He looked up from the Snoopy socks that he’s wearing, the ones that he’d stared at in the market for far too long before tossing into the basket. 

Mike had such warm eyes, and a quiet smile. 

“I’ve felt it too,” Bill said, and he sent Stan a cautious smile, almost shy. It was completely without pretense. That was just who Bill was, the boy king they’d all followed into battle. His goodness inspired goodness, his truth begat truth. His smile left Stan breathless. “Like magnets.”

“What, that we push each other apart?”

“No, that we’re the same kind of person in a sense, but not…” he gestured vaguely. “All I know for sure is...we’re bound together.”

“I’ve felt it, too. It’s like you said, Bill,” Mike said. “I’ve never felt like I was able to plan a future, but I know that I haven’t ever wanted a future without you in it somehow. All of you.” He was sitting sideways on top of the scratchy blanket, one big warm hand in the space between him and Stan. 

“Cool...uh, great,” Stan said. He took Mike’s hand in his. 

He reached for Bill’s hand, too, and took it in his, bringing them all together. Mike’s hands were soft, softer than he remembered. There were still calluses where Mike’s fingers met his palm, though they were less pronounced than they had been since they’d been children. More time spent between the shelves and behind a desk would do that, Stan figured. Bill’s hand was small in his, and pale. No matter how much sun he got, he remained lily-white.

“Your hands are fucking tiny,” Stan said. 

“They are not,” Bill said. “You and Mike just have stupid giant-man hands.” 

“Have you grown _any_ since we were kids?” Stan says.

“Fuck you, too,” Bill says without heat, and then, just because he’s a bitch, he tickles the underside of Stan’s foot. Stan jerked away from him, ashamed of the yelp he lets out, and skittered as close as he could to Mike, who’s just laughing, the traitor. 

“I swear, Bill, if you don’t stop right now, I will - ”

“You’ll what?”

“I will - break up with you right now.” 

“You’ll break up with me? Are we together?” Bill said, still smiling, but his eyes searching for something.

“Forget it, I don’t know why I said that, I don’t have a brain, and we are _not_ — ”

“You’re an accountant, I think it stands to reason that you probably _do_ have a brain — ”

“Yes? To us being together?” Stan said, feeling on the edge of some invisible precipice. Then he quickly added, “Yeah, I mean, if you want to be. You know, together. And if you want to be,” he said to Mike, who had wrapped his arms around him when he’d tried to move away from Bill. “I’ve never - I don’t know these things work. Relationships, I mean. Because I think I’ve spent my whole life missing you. Even if I didn’t know it. And so I’ve never really — and I don’t know what words you’re supposed to say, or what you’re supposed to do.”

Bill smiled. “It’s okay. I think...I think I get it.”

“Well, why don’t we start with this,” Mike said, calm like a spring morning. “Stan Uris and Bill Denbrough, will you do me the honors of getting the hell out of Derry with me?” Mike asked, warmth and a hint of mirth in his voice. “And after that...we can go from there.” 

“I think we can,” Bill agreed. He moved onto his knees, leaning closer to Stan. “Now, Mr. Uris. I believe you have a promise to fulfill?”

Stan covered his eyes with his hands, certain that his cheeks were burning. “Oh, please, no.”

“Stanley No Middle Name Uris, will you sleep with me tonight?”

“With cheesy lines like that, people actually read the stuff you write?”

“I read Bill’s books,” Mike says, mildly from behind Stan. 

“I do, too, that is so not the point here, Mike — ”

“We would very much like to sleep with you tonight, Bill,” Mike said gravely, though Stan could feel laughter rumbling in Mike’s chest. 

“Speak for yourself, Mike,” Stan said. “Bill hogs the covers and he always ends up spooning you by the end of the night.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Bill asked. 

Stan leaned back against Mike and could feel his heartbeat against his own. He reached out and took Bill’s hands in his. 

“It might not be,” he conceded, reaching his hands upward, tangling them into Bill’s hair. 

And then he kissed Bill. 

Bill‘s hair was just long enough that Stan could run the tips of his fingers through it. He breathed when they broke apart, his eyes still closed. 

Stan took a breath. 

He took another one. 

He thinks that he will replay this moment for the rest of his life. It wasn’t cinematic, it wasn’t grandiose. Bill's lips were chapped. But it felt like the end of a very long beautiful song. 

“I want to be with you,” Bill said murmured. “With the both of you. As long as you’ll have me.” 

“I wish to never be parted from you from this day on?” Mike asked with a teasing smile, and shifted so he was able to lean over and kiss Bill lightly on the lips, once, then again, lingering. 

“Why, Mr. Darcy, I thought you’d never ask.” 

Stan laughed. “I hate you so much, Mike.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” Stan said. “I really, really don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find me on tumblr at twoheartsoneclara!


	7. dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike woke up first.
> 
> The gray light of just before dawn coated the room, a sense of quiet. It feels like the calm after the storm, after the deluge. Like the sunset that comes after, golden light on red brick and puddles in alleys. It feels like time is liquid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is brought to you by the pride and prejudice (2005) soundtrack of which this entire chapter was written to (and is also actually the first chapter of this fic that i wrote)
> 
> this chapter is also brought to you by the too cute marathon on animal planet that they have running right now, of which this chapter was edited to. technically this chapter is also not brought to you by the too cute marathon on animal planet because i meant to post this chapter two days ago but those baby animals are just - you guessed it - too cute
> 
> shoutout to hannah for beta'ing even though i begged her like three times to read it over. thank u for ur beautiful patience
> 
> chapter title taken from dawn from the pride and prejudice soundtrack. mr. jean-yves...thank u for everything that you've done for me personally and also for this fic
> 
> warnings: other than a sudden pov switch and me finally make good on displaying the dialogue in the work's summary, none :)

Mike woke up first.

The gray light of just before dawn coated the room, a sense of quiet. It feels like the calm after the storm, after the deluge. Like the sunset that comes after, golden light on red brick and puddles in alleys. It feels like time is liquid.

He rolls over on his side.

Stan’s still there, and so is Bill, and Mike’s heart squeezes at the sight.

He has to remind himself that they’re safe, and he relaxes.

Stan’s curls are askew, his face soft in sleep, and Mike can’t see it, but he knows that there’s bandages tightly wrapped around Stan’s forearms.

But he’s not covered in blood and dirt anymore, he’s breathing. Mike counts the rises and falls of his chest.

Bill, on Stan’s other side, is similarly calm in sleep.

In all the years Mike has known Bill, Bill has never been an easy sleeper, and Mike was willing to bet that that hadn’t changed, even as an adult, even as he’d left Derry behind, that the nightmares and insomnia had followed him.

That was the difference between Bill and the rest of them, Mike thought.

They were all afraid, but Bill carried that guilt around with him wherever he went, as though it was his shadow. 

Perhaps that would change. Mike hoped it would.

Stan stirred, eyes fluttering open slowly, the first intake of breath deep.

“Hey, you,” Mike said.

“Hey,” Stan said back softly, voice rough, eyes slipping back shut. “Time is it?”

Mike turned over his shoulder to squint at the alarm clock behind him, the red neon numbers blurry.

“About half past five,” he said, turning back to gaze at Stanley, who had managed to open his eyes again.

Unbidden, one of Mike’s hands came up to the curl falling into Stan’s eyes.

He hovered there, eyes flicking back down to Stan’s eyes to ask for permission, and Stan nodded once, eyes flicking down and up.

Silently, he brushed the curl away, and as he retracted his hand, his fingers brushed lightly against Stan’s cheek.

A voice in the back of his head snidely asked him how many times he’d read Pride and Prejudice.

Mike told that voice to shut up.

Stan reached over him towards the bedside table, hand scrabbling over the two pairs of reading glasses there.

He put on one of the pairs of glasses and then made a face.

“Bill’s.”

He traded that pair for the one Mike swapped out to give him.

“There you are,” Stan said, smiling.

Mike’s heart leapt a little inside of his chest.

He sat up slowly, casting a look outside the window. It would still be sometime before the sun rose.

Beside him, Stanley shifted upright as well, still wearing that maroon sweater that Bill had furrowed his eyebrows at last night.

“I get really cold at night,” Stan had offered as an explanation, and Bill had shrugged and climbed under the blankets.

“He looks so calm,” Stan said, fingers trailing through Bill’s hair from his half-propped up position.

“Hmm,” Mike said by way of agreement.

“I’m  — ” Stan cut off, before his eyes flicked back to Mike.

“I’m glad to be here with you,” he said slowly, and Mike understood everything that he meant.

Mike leaned down and kissed him.

Kissing Stanley felt like drinking a fine wine: slow, languid.

Mike shifted and Stan turned until he was laying on top of Mike, a warm weight, settling him and grounding him.

When they drew back for air, Stan took off his glasses, set them back down on the bedside table, took Mike’s face in his hands, and kissed him again.

They traded kisses until Stan drew back and laid his head on Mike’s chest, heart beating steadily and evenly against Mike’s own, Mike’s hand coming up to clasp Stanley’s own, thumb rubbing across the back of his hand.

Stan took his hand between his own.

“Your hands are freezing,” Mike said.

Stan’s head popped up, and then he smirked at Mike.

Right before he proceeded to thrust his hands under Mike’s shirt.

“Fuck! Stan!”

But Stan was laughing, that bastard, and had rolled off of Mike before he could kick him.

Mike kicked him, anyway, which only made Stan laugh harder.

Bill groaned, but just turned over, and then Mike was laughing, too, except now they were both laughing as quietly as they could manage, with varying success.

“I’ll go find some kind of food somewhere,” Stan eventually whispered against his lips, kissing him softly, once. “Any special requests?”

“Muffins,” Mike said. “Any kind except poppyseed.”

“Duh,” Stan said, and then he slipped out of the bed, grabbing his glasses, a cardigan, and his wallet. He looked like a very poorly dressed librarian. And Mike should know. That’s what he’s been for the past twenty or so years.

“Come back soon,” Mike said to him.

Stan smiled.

He bent down and kissed Bill’s temple, kissed Mike once more, and then was out the door.

Mike shifted closer to Bill when the door closed. He missed Stan’s warmth, and Bill seemed to as well, his hands had come up to clutch at his pillow.

Watching Bill wake up was like watching the sunrise; slow, gradual, beautiful.

Eventually, Bill opened his eyes.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Mike said back.

“We’re not dead,” Bill concluded.

“We’re not,” Mike confirmed.

“Tha’s nice,” Bill muttered, and threw an arm around Mike’s waist, pulling him closer and nestling into the junction between Mike’s shoulder and his neck.

“Stan?”

“Gone off to find us breakfast,” Mike said.

Bill hummed.

They stayed there, until Bill asked Mike to hand him his glasses.

Mike complied, and Bill jammed them onto his face with one hand.

He turned again to Mike and smiled.

“There. Now you’re not just a blur.”

Mike grinned as one of his hands came down to settle on Bill’s hip. 

“A blur, huh?”

“Don’t get me wrong, a very beautiful blur. But a blur nonetheless.”

“Romantic,” Mike said, leaning in to kiss him.

“I write horror novels. Not romances.”

“Shame,” Mike said.

“But maybe...I don’t know,” Bill sighed. “Maybe now there are other things in my future. All this time...I never had closure. With G-georgie, with any of it...I was going through my life without a sense of completion...like s-something was always l-lurking over my shoulder. But now that’s over, and there’s a future that we’ve never had stretched out before us.” “We do,” Mike said. “Had we but world enough and time,” he murmured.

“Did you just make a fucking Doctor Who reference?”

“Maybe I did. Besides, it’s a poem, and you’re an English major.”

“Yeah, but that does not mean I know every poem on the fuckin’ planet,” Bill said, shifting on his side. “Besides, I always hated annotating poems. And Doctor Who is great.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Mike said, and then because he’s incorrigable, he added, “It’s also a Star Trek reference.”

Bill snorted and smiled at him, and it was soft and quiet, there in that room where time had stopped. 

He sat up and so did Bill, and they stayed there, Mike resting his head on Bill’s shoulder as Bill googled flights to Florida and asked Mike where he wanted to go.

MIke closed his eyes. “Pick a city,” he said. “Any city. We’ll just explore.”

“I’ll ask Stan for suggestions. But we’re absolutely going to Harry Potter World. And the beach.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mike said, and smiled, knowing that there was nowhere he had to be, nothing he had to do, just wait until Stanley got back with breakfast, and then they could make plans.

For their future.

Mike had a future.

With them.

He smiled.

And as the sun rose, Mike fell back asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> if thou desirest, there is a playlist with some of the vibes for this fic  here
> 
> thank you to everyone who has supported this journey: claudia and ashley for encouraging it in its very initial stages and throughout, hannah and kayla for being my writing buddies (and hannah beta’ing it even when she beta’d it all at once when i asked for only the second chapter, _hannah_ ), diana for everything and leaving me the nicest messages about my fic, anyone who has ever left a comment on this fic, my heart is eternally yours, you have no idea how happy you’ve made me. 
> 
> *end of a marvel movie font* stenbranlon will return. this series will continue with the continuation of everyone’s lives post clown-killing, and will focus on other ships as well
> 
> and as always, you can find me on tumblr at [twoheartsoneclara!](%E2%80%9Ctwoheartsoneclara.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D)


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